


The Tome of the Beast

by america_oreosandkitkats



Series: The Harbinger [1]
Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon)
Genre: AU where Wirt is the Lantern Bearer, Also Sadness, F/M, action adventure and a romp through the Unknown, ennui and angst, there's blood in them thar chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-04-15 07:37:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4598349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/america_oreosandkitkats/pseuds/america_oreosandkitkats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When one goes about making deals with the devil, one should read the contract’s fine print.</p><p>Some time ago, Wirt Parker took up the Lantern in exchange for the safe return of his brother’s soul to the land of the living--and to keep the Unknown from falling prey to an unbridled Beast, as those who feed the flame are rewarded with great strength and power. </p><p>Wirt and his wife, Beatrice, have traveled the land in search of Beast-snared souls to free, but failing to heed the lantern’s call takes its toll on the Lantern Bearer. One night, his negligence is too much and Wirt falls into grave peril. Scouring the magic wood of the Unknown, he and Beatrice search for a way to break his eternal contract. However, with each new discovery, they walk a delicate line between the Beast’s destruction and their own.</p><p>This is a story, not of the Apocalypse, but of something very close. Come one, come all, if you care to follow its Harbinger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

THE HARBINGER

PART THE FIRST: Tome of the Beast

CHAPTER I

 

  

WIRT

  
Somewhere, about a quarter of a mile back, whatever energy Wirt had in him wafted from his body like the smoke of an extinguished flame, and he fell straight into the mud. It took his wife several attempts to bring him to his knees. Using the edge of her turquoise cloak, she cleaned his face; with her hands, she brushed the mud from his overcoat and waistcoat. When she was satisfied with his appearance, she draped his arm over her shoulders and wrapped her arm around his torso and stood. They slogged up a hamlet through what was otherwise a refreshing and pleasant evening shower.

It would be unfair to call him a boy, as he had certainly changed since coming to these parts, but Wirt didn’t quite have the look of a man yet either. His jaw had squared. He’d grown much taller and broader. The hands that held the ancient lantern were much bigger and the palms rougher. Shaving was now something he needed to consider, and if he were still alive, he would not have been asked for his I.D. to buy a drink.

“We’re almost there,” his wife said, readjusting him on her hip. He moaned in response.

The hamlet plateaued, revealing a village--one of those map smudges where one could easily throw a rock from its opening to the edge of town. At the very end of said rock trajectory stood a two-storied brick and mortar building. Golden light and the stench of golden ale spilled through an open window. Hung above the door on a black iron pole, swung a sign, its face painted with a knight in red and in blue, the words _Windsor Tavern and Inn_.

Beatrice propped Wirt against a wall of the adjacent stable. It smelled of animal sweat, but no beast made its bed in the hay tonight.

“Wear my cloak,” she instructed, unhooking the brass fasteners and pointing to his tattered, tawny coat with her elbow.

“It doesn’t matter, Bea,” he muttered. “They’re going to recognize this.” He gestured to the lantern. Its hinges squeaked.

“It worked last time. We didn’t even need to use the spell,” she said as a matter of fact, clasping the hook. She looked him over with a soft expression. “You need food.”

“I need sleep,” he scoffed.

But what he really needed remained unstated between them. The rain fell around them in small drops, faster and harder than before. The air cooled.

Beatrice motioned to the building. “We can get both tonight.”

“I can just stay outside too,” he offered in a whisper, jerking his head towards the stables behind him. She curled her lip.

“You’re being _utterly_ ridiculous.” With a smirk, she kissed him quickly on the lips. “Just let me do all the talking.”

He smile was bitter as coffee, but he straightened. He slid his arm out of the coat sleeve and held the lukewarm lantern low under the coat’s body. With his other hand, he pulled the coat panel closed. Beatrice slid her arm through his, and the two of them walked into the light together.

The rain must have pushed the entire village into the building. Beatrice weaved through the loud and brash crowd and led him to the sole unclaimed table in the far corner. He draped his coat over the back of the chair and sat. She kissed his head and left him to order their meal and inquire about the rooms available, promising she’d be back soon.

Wirt dropped the lantern on the floor and kept it tucked between his ankles. The heat emanating from it barely registered to him; the light should be unnoticeable. Another wave of fatigue washed over him, but it did nothing to subside the pins pricking him up and down each and every nerve ending. Then came the nausea. The nausea always surprised him.

One would think, that a person who suffered as much and as often as he did, would be used to the static of pain. But the Lantern Bearer could do nothing but lean back into the cold, brick wall, and close his cinder block eyelids.

  
  


 

BEATRICE

 

“Where are you heading again?” the tavern keeper, of the Windsor family, asked, his voice deep and resonate. Mr. Windsor was a large, barrel-shaped man, with the thick haunches of someone who worked with their body for a living. The question pulled Beatrice away from watching her husband struggling in the corner. The dimness hid most of his face, but she could see the sheen of perspiration on his exposed jaw and chin.

“Just to the next town.” She tried to stitch together a smile with as much sincerity as she could muster. “My sister requested that we come. She’s just had a child--her first.”

Mr. Windsor crossed his arms and with his right hand, stroked his beard and mustache. He looked her up and down, as if searching for the one frayed threat that would unravel her deception. There were many to choose from.

Her long, copper nest of hair fell out of its braid with every passing moment. Her dress and petticoats were beyond ruined; her cloak stained with mud. She knew that she looked as though she had walked through the valley of death, and she knew with unwavering certainty that that was what Mr. Windsor saw in her tattered attire.

It would be just as unfair to call Beatrice a girl as it would be to call Wirt a boy, for she too had undergone the gentle changes that he had during their long walk in the wood. Her face had grown longer and more elegant, but her cheeks were noticeably sunken. The array of freckles she had gained and the tight muscles she had earned during their many days in the autumnal sun did not detract from her beauty, rather, they enhanced it. She had stopped growing taller, but instead grew fuller in both the bust and the hips. Her hands, once delicate and nimble, were just as calloused as Wirt’s.

“And the gentleman you came in with is…?” Mr. Windsor’s eyes darted up, toward Wirt’s corner.

“My husband,” Beatrice said emphatically. She ran her thumb over the cool, thin band of gold around her finger. She stitched together another smile and giggled. “Unfortunately, he’s not taking this weather very well.” She canted her head to the side and pouted. “Poor thing.”

The tavern keeper nodded. “Yeah, my wife always got sick when the weather turned like this.” He paused, this time looking neither at Beatrice nor Wirt, but someplace further. Her stomach crawled to her knees as she waited for him to speak once more. The candles on the chandelier flickered golden light and grey shadows across his face.

“Was it a nice ceremony?” he asked finally.

Beatrice creased her eyebrows and pursed her lips. She stopped herself from taking a step back, and forced herself to answer. “Uh, yeah. It was just fine.” Was it at all possible for weddings to be anything but joyous and lovely? “My father gave me away as my brother played the fiddle. My uncle officiated. His mother cried, first sons and all.” She stopped, considered her words, and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, it was a nice ceremony.”

She couldn’t see the man’s smile from under his beard, but she could see it in the crinkle of his eyes. “I think we have a room open for the night,” he said. “Just the night, though. Let me fetch you some supper and the key.”

Champagne bubbles popped in her chest. She stopped herself from outright hugging the man, but instead offered the most sincerest of thanks and an eager handshake. She continued to offer her thanks over her shoulder as she made her way back to her husband. Before she called out her beloved’s name, the sounds of a woman crying caught her attention.

“She’s only nine years old, Martha,” said the voice. “She couldn’t have gotten too far.”

The first woman, Martha, was slim with dark umber skin and cool undertones. She wore a white bonnet and an older styled dress, her bodice lower and tighter than Beatrice’s empire hemline, the color somewhere between blue and green. The handkerchief she wailed into was the most delicate shade of pink, with a _C_ embroidered in the corner.

The second woman, younger, had a lighter, russet shade of skin. She wore no bonnet, but tied her cloud like hair up in a wispy bun. Her dress, also in the older style, was red.

Beatrice dropped to the ground, feigning to fix her shoes, and listened.

“The Beast was out the evening she disappeared,” Martha said between gasps. “Lottie, she’s all I got now in this world.” Martha’s cries became muffled and Lottie hummed something smooth and soulful as consolation. Beatrice picked herself up and returned to Wirt.

Mr. Windsor came by with two bowls of thick, hot stew and crumbly, dry corn bread. The chair next to her creaked as Wirt pulled himself off the wall. She asked him how he was feeling, to which he didn’t respond. His hands trembled and spoon clattered against the tin bowl, contents spilling before he could reach his mouth. Beatrice offered him her spoonful of food, but he frowned at her, and instead reached down to pull the bowl to his face and drink. It was still messy, but allowed him to eat on his own accords.

“Who is she?” Wirt asked as he finished his meal.

“Who?”

“The woman over there, crying.” He pointed his spoon in Martha’s direction.

“A woman who has simply lost her daughter,” Beatrice replied, mindlessly poking at the stew. She looked at him with pinched lips. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Did she lose her in the woods?” Wirt asked.

“Maybe.”

“So, the Beast got her?”

Beatrice choked. At the table to their right, a patron looked over their shoulder at the pair.

“I didn’t say that.”

Wirt’s set brow, tight lips and stiff shoulders (despite the trembling) were a look that she had come to know quite well.

“You didn’t have to.”

“Don’t you dare,” she warned, low and sharp. He paid her no heed, stood and stepped around the table. A few steps forward, and the tremors and the insatiable weakness pushed him into the wedge between the wall and stone fireplace. More patrons were beginning to take notice of the two of them.

She scooped up the lantern and trotted to him. “Wirt,” she tried again. She took deep, even breaths, trying to calm the flutter in her heart. She reached out and touched his shoulder. She could feel him twitching and shaking, and the heat made her bite her lip. “Please, just sit.”

His hand met hers on his shoulder, and he tapped it. She pulled away. He stood. He turned to her, and with one smooth motion, took the lantern back.

Beatrice scoffed and muttered, “You’re going to get yourself killed.”

Wirt kissed her forehead with fire and retreated into the crowd.

“Ma’am,” he said to Martha. The crying woman looked up. “I can help you find your daughter.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Once the Beast has claimed its victim,” Lottie punctuated, “there is no_ finding _them, no_ stumbling _upon them. You need_ it _to find_ it's _victims.”_

WIRT 

 

The stew and cornbread did little to ease the aches, soothe the pinpricks, or steady the tremors, but it would be imprudent to say that the food did not help in some regard. His appetite was sated, and the blurry, dark edges around his vision sharpened and brightened. And, Wirt was able to walk over to the crying, desperate woman and declare his intentions to help her, without so much as a wall and a few tables to keep him upright.

Much to Beatrice’s dismay—he saw it in the way she kept her eyes down and rubbed her brow—that declaration gained the attention of just about every patron and the tavern keeper, Mr. Windsor. Knowing that there were all these many eyes on him all at once caused a shiver to race up his spine.

Martha reached out, grasped his free hand, and gave it a little shake. Her hold was warm and firm. She mouthed _thank you_ , as another trail of tears fell from her night-dark eyes. Eyes that looked upon him with the sort of intensity that steels resolves, rather than corrodes them. For an explosive second, Wirt couldn’t help but think of his own mother, and how she must have felt when they finally pulled Greg out of the lake. He dismissed and buried the thought deep in the back of his mind.

“How?” Martha’s friend Lottie chided. She sat across from him, hunched over her meal. She said nothing as she ran her ring finger around the cup’s mouth, as though she were trying to make the tin material sing.

 “Well, I—” Wirt started. Out of the corner of his eyes, he noticed that the patrons were now leaning in much closer than before.

Lottie grasped the mouth of the cup and slammed it against the tabletop, but she did not look at him. Wirt took an involuntary, infinitesimally small step away from her, but the lantern handle’s hinge squawked, betraying his intended subtlety. On top of the radiating pain, his chest ached with every pounding heartbeat.

“Clara doesn’t have time for foolishness, _boy_ ,” Lottie sneered. Wirt’s face scrunched with incredulity. “How do you intend to find her without invoking the Beast?”

Her question cut through him. Martha protested as Beatrice appeared next to him. She slid her hand into his and gave him a reassuring squeeze, which he returned. She slipped out of his grasp and approached the table.

“Ma’am,” Beatrice started. She held her hands out in surrender and dropped them, as though she were physically trying to lower the tension. “We’re not going to call upon the Beast to get her daughter back.” She motioned to Martha with a jerk of her head. Martha quietly said to Lottie, _I told you so_ , to which Lottie responded with an eye roll.

“Once the Beast has claimed its victim,” Lottie punctuated, “there is no _finding_ them, no _stumbling_ upon them. You need _it_ to find _its_ victims.”

The words were a razor blade pressed and dragged across his heart, and he fought to keep his facial expression neutral. Beatrice bristled at the statement.

“Please, trust us,” Beatrice offered.

“Why should we?” Lottie demanded. She pushed against the tabletop and stood. The chair legs scraped across the floor. “You come here blowing in with the wind. We don’t know you, but I do know that you cannot find the Beast’s victims unless it wants you to find them. Or unless you summon it. The person who would be willing to subject themselves to this most evil of evils is a person I cannot and I refuse to trust.”

 “Charlotte—” Martha said tersely.

“We’re but weary travelers who have a select set of skills that are advantageous to resisting the Beast,” Beatrice tried, the finest thread of exacerbation on her tongue and in the way she threw her arm out. “We want to help.”

Martha’s disposition lightened. Lottie’s expression shifted from accusatory to curious as she mouthed the words _select set of skills_. It was as if Wirt was watching a match ignite frame by excruciating frame.

Lottie drove around the table, dodging Martha, who tried to stop her, to close the distance between her and Wirt. The floor dropped, and Wirt’s stomach fell with it. Beatrice moved to block Lottie, who used her shoulder to wedge herself between them. Beatrice stumbled, but corrected herself with the table’s edge.

He took another step backwards. His heel caught something in the uneven floor and he fell, but he never reached the bottom.

With rock-rough hands, Lottie caught him by the wrist and pulled up. He cried out in pain. The ancient, bloody lantern he was burdened to carry cast its weak light across his face. Lottie’s eyes darted between his face and the _thing_. His breath caught in his throat. The fire of recognition now blazed. He squirmed, trying to pry her hands off of him. She only gripped tighter.

Martha shouted at the woman to let go of the young man. Beatrice clawed at her.

“I’m protecting you and Clara!” Lottie spat back at Martha.

The crimson lantern was now in full view of the patrons. They gasped with their own recognition. A whisper and a chill rustled through them as the wind races through autumn leaves. Some made the sign of the cross. Commotion in the kitchen soon revealed the tavern keeper, a burlap sack labeled _Salt_ in one hand, and a jar of long leaves marked _Sage_ in the other. Even Martha had to clutch at the charm around her neck.

Lottie’s mouth pulled into a horrible, wicked line. “You’re the Beast’s stead!” she exclaimed. “The Lantern Bearer!”

Stars popped in Wirt’s vision. Bells rang in his ears. His arms and legs went limp.

Through the fog, he heard Beatrice shout, “Let him go!” There were racing footsteps and two grunts: one from Beatrice delivering the blow, and the second from Lottie receiving it. He was sent sprawling to the ground, the impact a mere inconvenience in the wake of the everything else. His vision darkened, darkened, darkened, until there was nothing but an empty, vast black.

  


BEATRICE

Beatrice pulled herself up and wiped the hot, angry tears from her eyes with the back of her wrist. Lottie groaned as she sat herself upright. The young woman rubbed the side of her face and blinked hard as though she were trying to pull her vision into focus. If Beatrice concentrated, she could almost dispel the sickening _crack_ she heard as the two of them crashed into the hard, wooden ground. Martha stayed with her friend, but implored one of the patrons to fetch her a glass of cold water. The glare she gave Beatrice was as cold as Beatrice expected that drink to be.

She dropped to her knees and gathered her unconscious husband into her lap. His skin burned like smelted iron, and his chest rose and fell far too quickly for her liking. She reached and took the lantern from Wirt’s limp hands. She sat it up. The light pulsed slowly, too weak to even cast shadows. She was quite certain that the light had been stronger a moment before this. She cursed under her trembling breath as another wave of tears pricked her eyes, and a lump formed in her throat. She stroked Wirt’s cheek, hoping that her touch might stir him awake.

A shadow fell over her. Mr. Windsor. His eyes were wild, and with uncertain hands, he reached into his sack of salt and threw it in their general direction. It didn’t even graze Wirt’s shoe.

“You and _him_ need to get off of my property,” he demanded gruffly.

Beatrice blanched. “Can’t you see he’s _hurt_?” she exclaimed. “He needs to rest.”

“Rather he die than the Beast destroy another soul,” Lottie croaked. She now sat back at the table, head resting in her palm and that cool drink beside her.

“That’s not how it works!” Beatrice protested. Her voice cracked. Those tears she had tried so hard to keep locked up now spilled freely down her cheeks. “Martha, please. You have to believe us.” Martha said nothing, her lips tight and dammed.

Mr. Windsor motioned towards the patrons and whistled. Two individuals, who mirrored him in all ways but hair, as they had it and he did not, approached their small party of four. Dread crept over her as the fog creeps over a cemetery, slowly and icy cold.

“If you don’t take yourselves out,” the tavern keeper said, “we’ll be more than happy to take you out ourselves.”

“You will not touch him!” Beatrice snarled. Her freckled cheeks were still wet, and her disheveled, undignified hair hung around her face like Spanish moss on tree branches, but her voice did not waver. She rose to her knees and pulled Wirt out of the direct line of fire by using her own body as a shield. She bore her gaze into the tavern keeper’s steely, blue eyes. He blinked first.

Her heart rapped out the beat of an army’s drummer when she caught something glimmer in the golden light of the chandelier.

The door they entered through was the tavern’s only exit, and it stood at least fifteen feet behind and to her right, with a maze of tables and scattered stools in between. She and Wirt had drilled something he called a fireman’s carry (he had learned in Boy Scouts, whatever that was) until she could pull and secure him over her shoulders in one fluid motion. She knew she could do it—she _had_ done it a few times in the past. But they had never been this outnumbered. Wirt had never been unconscious, and the lantern had never been so dim.

As if on cue, Wirt stirred and mewled beneath her. Relief flooded her. She stiffened as she fought the urge to dip down and kiss him right there. She kept her focus on a swivel, intent to find that silver glint—or glints, she admitted—again.

“How long was I out?” Wirt asked, caressing her arm.

“Long enough,” she responded, breathless.

She stood and helped raise her husband to his shaky legs. She examined him for additional abrasions or other things of concern. She found none, but still asked if he was alright and seeing clearly. He said he was. Beatrice cupped his face with one hand and resisted, once again, kissing him. Instead, she let her thumb linger at the corner of his mouth. _I love you_ , she hoped the gesture said, _and we’ll get through this together—like we always do_.

They took a small, deliberate step backwards, towards the door. He faltered, and she pulled his arm over her shoulder to bear his weight. Something glinted again, just over the shoulder of Mr. Windsor. And another something glinted from a closer row.

The pool of patrons grew larger, but it couldn’t have—no others had come in since their arrival. They came together like water seeking its lowest elevation. Some towards the back now stood. The tavern keeper and his friends kept them at bay, it seemed.

“Look,” Beatrice snapped. “We’re leaving. On our own accord.” A quick look over her shoulder—just another ten feet or so.

Lottie stood on her table. Beatrice audibly cursed.

“Good people of this town!” Lottie declared. Martha, this time, offered no assistance. “Are we to let the _Lantern Bearer_ and his _woman_ just leave to claim their next soul?”

Beatrice took bigger steps now. She bumped into tables and ran Wirt into chairs. She promised herself that she would apologize once they were safe.

 _If_ they were safe.

“No!” someone cried out from the back, towards the crest of the wave. The word was sharp and clear and plunged straight into Beatrice’s belly. She held Wirt tighter. He held her tighter. Together, they stopped breathing.

A rumble of voices echoed the second speaker. Their words grew louder and louder still. The items that they held, some banged the handles on the tables and on the floor. Beatrice and Wirt took the only step they could manage backwards. She looked into her husband’s eyes, not in search of answers that were clearly unavailable, but for the soft recognition that this might be the end of their very long time in the wood.

“Is it not time to rise against the evil in our land?” Lottie implored. The crowd, the wave, responded in kind. Beatrice’s fingertips grazed the iron doorknob.

“Satan!” Lottie shouted again, pointing at Wirt and Beatrice. The light from the chandelier outlined her in gold but darkened her face. Her hair splayed in all directions like a medusa. She quivered as if a heavy weight saddled itself on her shoulders and slithered down her arm. “Your kingdom must come down!”

Wirt’s fingernails, gripping into her shoulder, broke skin.

That silver glint she’d seen earlier swooshed through the air. Beatrice drove herself and Wirt to the floor with a yelp. It rang against the stony wall and clattered against the floor. As Beatrice clambered up, she looked over her shoulder. The silver glint was the blade of an axe, and it had fallen near where she had stood but a moment ago.

Beatrice threw her weight into the door. It squeaked. One more hit and it flew open. She grabbed Wirt’s wrist and pulled his distressingly light body over her shoulders and locked his knee and the cloth of his long shirt in her hand. With her other hand, she gathered her skirts up high. She dashed out of the building before the second silver glint could reach the top of its arc.

The dam broke. Even Mr. Windsor and his friends were swept up in the pandemonium.

The rain from earlier had stopped and the clouds had receded, leaving the moon, eternally half-full, clear to blaze their trail.

Gravity lengthened her stride as she made her way down the small hamlet, despite her burning lungs and her screaming muscles. The voices of the townspeople calling for the righteous spilling of their blood rang in her ears like cannon fire.

Even when they—if they—reached the woods, where would they go?

A glass bottle shattered behind her, though far enough away that she wasn’t hit by any of the shards.

At the base of the hill and the nadir of her momentum, Beatrice slowed. Her foot caught the edge of a rock, rolling it sideways and sending a twinge from her ankle up her leg. She almost dropped Wirt. She recovered, but she was much slower than she had been, and she hadn’t been moving all that fast a moment ago. Arms exhausted, she dropped her skirts. Her legs were going to give out any minute.

The trees and their great flurry of gold and red swallowed the moon and its starry net whole.

She slowed to a stiff walk. It had been some time since she and Wirt had passed through the woods itself, as he wanted to stay on the main roads that only dipped into the Beast’s territory occasionally. Once, a very long time ago, he had mentioned something about its singing, and the insufferable headaches that followed. But she heard no melody here, only the crickets and a cool autumn whisper.

What was once frenzied, now stood quiet as a church. The mob had dissipated—perhaps their fear of the Beast outshone their fear of its stead.

The cascade of relief was certainly powerful enough to make her cry, but Beatrice had no more tears to give. Instead, she collapsed into the dewy grass. The coolness felt good on her soaked, blazing skin, though every muscle in her body cried out in anguish. Wirt slid off her back with a groan. With the remaining tendrils of energy, she unclasped her cloak and shrugged it off. Even that sudden chill felt wonderful.

Beatrice considered with elation the possibility that heaven may be this exact feeling repeated until Judgment Day.

Wirt slumped next to her, only a breath’s distance between them, their noses almost touching. His face was once a shade of peach with a slight olive undertone. She hadn’t seen that shade in his temperament since before they had begun this journey, but the lack of color _now_ was far more concerning than the time elapsed since last she saw him healthy. He lay close enough that she could see the flecks of green in his whiskey colored eyes, and the valleys of purple that lay under them. She cupped his face and threaded her fingers through his hair. His stubble tickled her palm.

Wirt’s hand traced up her body from her hip and settled behind her neck. The coolness of his gold band sent shivers down her spine. He pulled her closer, gently, in imperceptible movements. He looked at her as though he were trying to prove to himself that she was here, and that she was real. She knew this, because she was trying to reassure herself of the same thing. When his lips finally touched her cheek, she trembled. He traced feather-light kisses down her jaw, and when his lips finally reached hers, she unravelled.

If there was anything Beatrice could hope for in this world, it was that this moment—this moment right here—would not bleed into the next so soon. Perhaps this moment could lay suspended, and they wouldn’t have to worry about the Beast or its singing or its victims or the lantern.

Because right now, they were safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the praise goes to kimpernickle for her gracious support and beta-ing.
> 
> "Satan...your kingdom must come down," is a reference to a song, because this fic is slowly turning into an unintended jukebox musical. This is the doobly-doo, so [here's a link.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-1a_91XLb0)
> 
> Follow me on [tumblr](http://america-oreosandkitkats.tumblr.com/) if you want to see me bitch about the formation of these chapters!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He could remember June._

WIRT

Kissing Beatrice was the closest he could bring himself to summer. It had been an indiscernible amount of time—as trying to pin down exact durations of time in the Unknown was like trying to watch an airplane cut across the sun—since he had seen a color in the trees that wasn’t dull. An equal time since the wind did not dig into his bones. But here in her arms, her mouth on his and the steady rhythm they had developed, he could remember scalding heat and wide, open blue skies. He could remember June.

She pulled away first. The little bit of moonlight that percolated through the foliage outlined her in silver. He couldn’t see the stars in the sky, for they were scattered across her nose and cheeks. Untamable auburn hair spilled around them like rivulets of burning water. He reached out, felt the small tendrils of a smile quirk the corner of his mouth and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. She placed her own hand on top of his, leaned into his touch and kissed his palm. He said her name like a prayer.

“Now I know the woman that you are,” he sang in some semblance of a pitch. “You’re wonderful so far and that’s all I could hope for.”

She sang the next line in response, “I don’t care what consequence it brings. I have been a fool for lesser things…” Her voice trailed and the song ceased. Beatrice pulled her lips in and something akin to sadness pinched her expression. She pulled away further and rose, stepping towards the light and away from him.

An explosion, louder and deeper than the pain already pulsing through his body, went off in his chest.

“Bea?” he tried but only the chirp of the crickets and the whistle of the wind responded.

She sighed with a heave of her shoulders. “Wirt,” she said hardly louder than a whisper. “Sweetheart, we can’t keep doing this.”

The grass fell, leaving him in freefall. His head spun.

“Wh-what are you talking about?” he asked. Slowly, and with the help of a nearby oak, he pulled himself to his feet. She turned to him, eyes never leaving him, but never offering to help. He had to blink away his blurred vision, but otherwise, the movement was not as daunting as it had once been. Perhaps there was something in the stew—the tavern keeper did know to keep his kitchen stocked with salt and sage. But perhaps it had been Beatrice. Perhaps it had been his wife.

With one hand, she rubbed her temple, then ran it through her matted hair.

Her dress, once a lovely shade of violet, was now practically grey from many washes in the river and muddy from this and their many other escapes. The edges were frayed. A tear cut across her sleeve. The material of the bodice hung loose, in part because of its wear and in part because the human body was not meant to survive on walnuts and berries and the occasional rabbit. Her cheekbones stood sharp against the tender glow of the moon.

When he realized that the tavern they had run from was the first time in Lord knows how long they would have slept with a _roof_ above them, he sank into the tree. He looked at and turned the ring around his finger.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m trying—”

“I _know_ you’re trying,” Beatrice cut him off savagely. He recoiled. She dropped her arms and faced the moon again, hands on her hips. She sighed dejectedly and cast her gaze upwards. A tiny, uncharacteristically weak voice came from her. “I’m _tired_ , Wirt,” she said.

He said nothing, had nothing to say, but his eyes stung. “What do I need to do?”

She didn’t say anything at first, which Wirt took as a good sign. If she had to think about it, maybe it was something minor. Maybe it was something that he could fix. Cross his heart and hope to die...again, he would keep his mouth shut in the next town. He would get something for her, even though he’d never been particularly good at stealing. Once, in that murky place called The Past, he tried to swipe a beet from a market, but came back twenty minutes later to returned it with the vendor none the wiser. But for her, and for her to stay, Wirt would climb up a tree and clamber into the sky and retrieve the moon for her. A damned string called hope coiled around his heart and tugged.

“Your job,” she said flatly after some time. She looked up at him. “Wirt, you need to do your job.”

He creased his brow and eyed the lantern. The light couldn’t even be mistaken for a firefly’s glow.

“I do,” he muttered, though he had found the grass to be a much better object of his attention than either her or the lantern.

“No,” she said. Her expression shifted from exhaustion to accusatory as lightning strikes a field, quick and hot. “No you _don’t._ ” She crossed the grass to him and balled his shirt in her hands. As she pushed him against the tree trunk, she said, “You wait and you wait and you wait until the _absolute_ last minute to refill the oil.” Beatrice pulled away, hands sliding down his arms and resting at the crook of his elbow. Goddamnit, you can hardly stand.”

With a glance, he saw that her brows were knitted in concern and that her bottom lip trembled.

“We almost got into some serious trouble back there,” she said. She dipped low to catch his eyes. “What if I wasn’t fast enough? What if you didn’t wake up?”

He took her hands and brought them to his lips. “We’ll be fine,” he said, quircking his mouth in something of a smile. “We always are.”

“I won’t be fine when you finally kill yourself!” she shouted, retreating. “What am I supposed to do when you’re gone? Go back to my _parents_? Do you not remember what my own _mother_ said to me when we left?” He was there. He remembered.

She snatched the lantern from the ground and offered it to him. “Let the Beast take this one.”

Wirt pushed himself off the tree. “She’s just a kid!”

She pushed him back with the lantern. “Get your strength back and save the next one.”

Wirt grasped her wrist. Slowly, he moved her arm and the lantern she held to the side. The pain crept up his neck and played a timpani in his head, in addition to the orchestral crescendo everywhere else. He gave her wrist a little tug, but she wouldn’t move closer to him. “You already saved Greg,” she said softly. “These people are _not_ your responsibility.” He winced.

He had saved Greg—had pulled the branches off of him and hummed a calming lullaby because Greg wasn’t even seven yet and lullabies were still calming, even in the face of concentrated evil. He sent him back to the land of the living, to Aberdale, to _Mom_ with one last hug and a plea to be good. Greg asked why he couldn’t come. Wirt told him to get a head start, that he’d be right behind. It was a race. It was a game.

All in exchange for picking up the damned lantern.

Wirt glanced at the moon and wondered, for the first time in ages, if on a brisk autumn night, lit by a half-moon, Greg would look up and think of his older brother.

Wirt was going to say something in response to Beatrice, but the words died on his lips. He heard something in the air: a soft voice, and a nearly unrecognizable melody. He closed his eyes and tried to block out the sounds of the night. He took an unsteady step toward the sound, and then another.

Beatrice pulled her cloak back on and snaked under him, propping him up.

As they followed the sound deeper into the forest of the Unknown, the melody became unmistakable. The operatic baritone covered them in dread.

 

_Come, wayward souls,_

_who wander through the darkness._

_There is a light,_

_for the lost and the meek._

 

The Beast was afoot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Labor Day, my fellow Americans! 
> 
> Another chapter, another round of applause to Miss Kimpernickle, who has been very gracious during this whole process.
> 
> I'm sorry the updates for this are starting to slow down. I'm in the process of applying to grad school and Chapter 5 is being particularly finicky in terms of wanting to be written _well_. Slog through September with me, and I promise we'll hit a better, more update-y stride in October.
> 
> Again, unintentional jukebox musical. If you haven't heard Billy Joel's "[For the Longest Time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_XgQhMPeEQ)," first of all, how dare you. Second of all, remember this tune folks. It's going to make a comeback in the future.
> 
> Don't forget to leave a comment or a kudo! And if you want real time updates of this behemoth, follow me on [tumblr](http://america-oreosandkitkats.tumblr.com/tagged/ficwip%3A-harbinger).


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“We’re going to get you out of here,” Beatrice continued, “but you need to tell me about the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”_

WIRT 

Beatrice and Wirt followed the macabre song deeper into the woods until it faded into the wind at a clearing of starry marigolds edged by old oaks contorting and clawing into the night. But there was no Beast here. Instead, before them, shrouded in sharp shadows from the moon’s bright light, engulfed in the sanguine vines of the edelwood tree, was a child.

Her little arms jutted from the growing stump like another pair of branches themselves. The vines curled around her neck and wrapped around her body, but her face, dark as her mother’s, remained untouched. The little girl looked up at them with scarlet-rimmed eyes and beckoned them with hoarse whimpers and crooked spasms from her twisted arm. The ends of her pale pink dress fluttered like a flag of surrender.

Beatrice gasped. “Clara.”

The light in the lantern flickered. The earth shifted under Wirt’s feet and he stiffened.

 _Chop the wood to light the fire_ , a familiar voice rang at a pitch that he had long since ascertained only he could hear.

The ground beneath him fell. His breath caught in his throat as he plunged into a unfathomably deep, cold sea, and bitter, stinging hands reached into him and pulled and pulled and pulled until there was nothing left but a frost so thorough that it burned his insides. A howl repeated the words and grew in volume and in rage, subsuming his mind, until he thought he might splinter into a thousand pieces. And then he did.

He cried out, and he would have fallen to his knees, had it not been for his wife. The sensation was something akin to falling on a bed of glass shards. He descended further, until every sense snapped into place like a bowstring after its archer releases its shot. The silence made his ears ring.

A wave of profound energy surged through his body, causing the Lantern Bearer to tremble and speculate why he had resisted against this for so long. He straightened out of Beatrice’s hold with an almost forgotten ease. He flexed his hands. How wonderful it felt to _exist_ without encumberments.

With a deep breath, Wirt took in the mulchy air. It carried the thick, ruddy scent of the midnight black oil maturing and flowing through the tree’s veins like blood. He tasted its acrid flavor. He heard Beatrice’s heart—and the child’s across the field—flutter like hummingbird’s wings. He took a step forward, and then another, with neither tremors nor pain obstructing his stride. The girl squirmed, and one of her branch-like arms twitched, as though shocked, as though a movement so simple would slow his steps.

Hardly an arm’s length away, Wirt crouched before her. Upon further inspection, he concluded that the little girl was, in fact, very small in both stature and significance—hardly a phrase in the great cosmic story. Nothing to be missed.

He glanced at the lamp. The light hovered dangerously low to its wick. It needed nourishment. The branches needed despair to grow and thrive, so he wondered if her resurgent fear would hasten or slow the process. He admitted with shame that he had not adhered to his duties. He, and only he, could chop the trees and harvest the oil to keep the light burning, as this was his bargain to uphold.

A wind wailed through the meadow with a different melody caught on its tail. The surrounding trees bowed into each other, their reds, golds and few remaining greens blending together like a watercolor left out in a storm. Wirt held his arm up to shield his eyes. The air grew quite dry.

That wind whirled beside him, picking up fallen branches and leaves and small rocks. Static electricity charged, and the little hairs on the nape of his neck and arms rose. Under the debris, the air darkened until a shape that light itself could not penetrate formed.

The shadow stood several feet taller than Wirt, with long antlers branching out from its head. Its eyes, too large to be either human or animal, glowed with their own, internal light. The Beast had arrived and the wind bowed to its presence.

Wirt rose and approached the shadow, as if commanded, but the Beast had not spoken, not even in that whistle he could only hear. Instead, it met him in the middle with smokey, incorporeal steps and scrutinized him with its spotlight eyes. Wirt expected some kind of retaliatory reaction: bellowing reminders of who he once was and the transgressions that had passed under his watch, with words like talons scathing into him; a back of the hand to be struck against his cheek, sharper than the words, but bruises fade; a literal grasp of his heart. But the Beast remained as quiet and as still as a graveyard. It made his stomach squirm and mouth dry.

When it slithered next to him, the Beast reached into its chest, as though rifling for something out of a coat pocket, and revealed a maple-handled axe. The steel blade glimmered in the moonlight. It extended its gift to its Lantern Bearer.

He took it. The Beast slinked around him, continuing its satellite saunter. Wirt turned the instrument over in his hands and caught something he never saw before: a small, blooming rose etched near the blade’s joint. He had never known the Woodsman beyond his occupation, so he could only draw hypotheses for its purpose: his daughter’s name, a family symbol? He gripped the handle as he contemplated the number of children the Beast had lured from their home, and the number of children he and Beatrice had pulled from its ensnarement.

He sat the lantern down and let his arm swing, gauging the way the blade guided the handle. He made adjustments in his grip until the balance felt just right. The Beast reached for the lantern, and had Wirt not been in this particular state of mind, he would have missed the movement all together. But Wirt struck the earth with a fierce swipe of the blade. It landed with a _thunk_ and the Beast retreated.

The Beast gripped his shoulders with biting, spindled fingers. Wirt suppressed a shiver. “How does it feel to be back behind such a force?” it crooned. It gestured to the girl and the vines crept up her little body faster. Her hand began to turn red and rough.

Wirt inhaled sharply. His fingers twitched. He could smell the oil; it was moments from peak. It needed to be harvested soon.

The Beast crept around the girl, whispering things to her that Wirt paid no attention to, not because he couldn’t hear, but because he chose not to. It was one thing to process the edelwood, and another thing entirely to listen to the intimate details that compelled a soul to surrender to the soil. Blue, yellow, red bled into the Beast’s blazing eyes, where an iris and pupil should have been. Wirt waited in the wind.

Tears fell from the girl’s eyes, and the red rough extended up her arm. Wirt took a step towards her. She screamed and cried for her mother with a broken voice.

Wirt scrunched his face and slowly lowered the axe. With her eyes wide, her body trembling and her heart beating loud enough that even his unheightened hearing would have picked it up, the girl resembled an entangled rabbit more than a child. Fear may encourage the vines to grow, but would its product be so potent? The child needed to be hopeless, but here she defied the branches and the song as though there was still something to cling to, as though she could maneuver herself from this precocious situation, as though she shouldn’t be here in the first place. Curiously, he found himself agreeing with the latter.

The Beast stopped circling the girl and looked up at him. “What are you waiting for?” it snarled and swooped across the grass to him. It leaned in close, bearing its bright eyes. Wirt squinted and held the axe up between him, and his heart beat like a snare drum. Sweat beaded and dripped down his temples.

With a sharp, albeit echoing voice, his wife called out his name.

He emerged from the waters with a gasp. The energy and the power slipped off him and he returned to subsuming hellfire. The force knocked him off his feet straight onto his back, a white hot jolt charged through his body. He rolled onto his side, pulled into the fetal position, and just tried to breathe. Nausea settled over him in high waves as blood pooled in his mouth. Some trickled from the corner of his lips and some dripped from his nose. With the back of his sweaty, trembling hand, he wiped it off.

Wirt watched the Beast swallow the moon and its netted stars; the only light now emanated from its eyes, white again, and blazing like iron ore in a kiln. It closed the distance between it and Beatrice with a shriek.. Her expression twisted with determination and her hands clenched at her side, but a scream hovered over his wife’s parted lips.

He choked and blood splattered the grass. “H-hey!” Wirt wheezed. The darkness receded. Both Beatrice and the Beast looked in his direction.

The horizon tilted as though he were on a boat in the middle of the Atlantic, and he careened just the same. With a grunt through gritted teeth, he rose to his knees. A sharp prick shot through his abdomen; he gripped his side.

“You’re...problem is with me, Beast,” Wirt said, but it came out as more of a mumble. Another wave of nausea pushed him to his free hand. He winced, and he could not raise his head. “Leave...leave my wife out of this.”

His heart pounded in his ears. Sweat rolled down his long bangs. He gripped the grass. And waited.

A scream and the Beast enveloped him in a hellish cold and an impermeable darkness.

 

BEATRICE

Beatrice could not feel anything, could not scream, could not breathe as she raced to Clara’s side. The rough red on the girl’s hand now traveled up her sleeve. With hands whose joints were replaced with molasses, Beatrice clawed at the vines still slithering slowly around the girl’s body. Each time she snapped off a branch, it seemed four grew in its place like a hydra from lore.

“Wake up,” Beatrice muttered, but whether she said it to herself or to the child before her was unknown.

It seemed as though the transformation had consumed what was left of Clara’s energy, leaving her wilted like a rose during a drought. Beatrice gave her cheeks a tap with the back of her quivering hand. When the child did not acknowledge her, Beatrice bit her lip to suppress a scream. She pulled at the branches, only to rip off their leaves. She pulled and pulled until her hands were as raw and as red as the edelwood bark. Hot tears welled in her eyes, blurring her vision. “ _Wake up_ ,” she almost-screamed through gritted teeth, wiping her eyes with her shoulders.

At that, Clara’s eyelids fluttered open. Beatrice attempted to soften her expression for the child, who was, she reminded herself, only nine years old and not at any degree of fault for the situation at hand. “Clara, honey, I need your help getting these branches off.”

“How do you know my name?” Clara croaked.

“Your mother sent us,” Beatrice said quickly. “ _Listen_ —”

“Momma?” Clara looked up with bloodshot eyes. The word and the tiny pinprick of hope in her question caused the edelwood to creak as it slowed.

Beatrice sighed heavily, a weight lifting from her shoulders. She almost collapsed.

“Y-yes. Your mom did. Now, hurry. I need you to do something for me.”

“But I’m stuck.”

The pressure in the glade changed and her hair flapped in the ensuing wind. Behind her, the Beast roared. “You dare make a deal with me and not live up to your end of the bargain?”

She heard a _crunch_ and Wirt’s moan muffled in the grass. She stifled a cry and fought every part that beckoned her to look over her shoulder—even just a glance. But she was no wife of Lot. Despite the girl’s weariness, Clara strained to peer over Beatrice’s hunched body. The woman met her gaze. “Look at _me_ ,” she ordered. “Not at them.” Clara nodded feebly.

“We’re going to get you out of here,” Beatrice continued, “but you need to tell me about the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”

“What?”

Beatrice failed to keep her favorite string of swears locked behind her lips. “Something that was really great, got you really excited. I don’t know what the kids are into these days. Did you see a puppy playing in a puddle? Get a new baby sibling?”

Clara thought for a moment. Her gaze distant, but she wasn’t trying to steal a peek. “Shoes,” she said finally.

“OK, great,” Beatrice responded still pulling the branches. “Shoes. What about them?”

“Look at  you,” the Beast’s thundered, startling Beatrice. “At least the Woodsman _listened_ and _responded_ to the lantern. We do important work, Lantern Bearer. You have done nothing but tarnish its holy mission.” Her husband’s silence sent shivers down her spine and she focused on her ring while whispering to herself, _we always get through it, we always get through it._

Clara continued. “Momma got them for me. It was only April and it was warm, but the lightening bugs weren’t out yet. They were green and my first pair of shoes. Miss Emily had a pair exactly like them.” A groan from the edelwood. The encroachment not only stopped, but now seemed to retreat.

Wirt coughed, the sound wet. Beatrice heard shuffling like he was struggling to pull himself up. A small smile crossed her lips and she blinked away more pooling tears. If he was moving that meant the Beast hadn’t killed him just yet. They were going to be fine and—

“Well,” her husband said in a tiny, husky, breathless voice, “the Woodsman is dead and we chopped him up that afternoon, so you’re stuck with me.”

“Not unless you pick your your slack, _boy_.” The wind cut across the glade like the tips of frost-bitten swords. The branches began to grow again and Beatrice swore loudly. Her slow, clumsy hands failed even more in the piercing cold. Her teeth chattered, despite the warmth of her cloak.

“Clara, listen to me. We’re _going to get you out_. Why it took so long for you to get shoes?”

“M-Master Thompson didn’t want any of us having shoes,” she stumbled. “Didn’t need them, he said, because Maryland was warm enough.”

Beatrice swore again as the branches now reached out and encircled her wrists. She pulled her arm back sharply, breaking off the new, weak branch.

“Christ Almighty. Clara, don’t think about that part,” she said. How had she not put two and two together herself? “Tell me about your escape.”

“We left the same night she gave me the shoes. We left with Auntie Lottie and we had to run just about the whole night because Master Thompson had dogs.”

“Focus on the happy!”

“But we made it through the first night. A very kind gentleman let us stay in his barn during the day and his wife and son helped us leave when Master Thompson caught up with us. The sunset was so pretty, and I knew--we knew that everything was going to be fine as long as we stayed together. We walked for days until we found ourselves here.”

The Beast bellowed again, “Do you think this is a game? The light must never go out! It cannot go out!”

The vines retracted as if pulled by something below the surface. The red rough on her arm shimmered like a mirage, until like a mirage itself, it too was not there, a cover for smooth, young skin. With a snap, the branches holding her captive broke apart like an old book opening. Clara squirmed down and tripped into Beatrice’s open arms. She shivered against the cold and the weight of what had just transpired.

Beatrice pulled the girl under the cloak, dropped to her knees and let Clara climb onto her back. The woman whispered the enchantment she’d been given by the old tailor as they completed the spellbound embroidering. Beatrice repeated it until she saw nothing but soft grass through the cloak’s material. She stood and readjusted Clara on her back.

Beatrice turned, but did not turn into salt, though the sight of her husband almost froze her in place. Bile rose in her throat.

The Beast said nothing, but continued to circle him. Wirt said that sometimes, only he could hear the Beast, so she wondered if this what was happening, or if it was simply _that_ consumed with rage. Surely, with or without an enchanted invisible cloak, it wouldn’t have seen her. She held her breath as she edged closer to the pair, as she reached forward for the lamp, as she clasped her fingers around its handle, as she pulled back, turned away and dashed through the wood.

“Are you ready to see your mom again, Clara?” Beatrice panted over her shoulder. The girl nodded. “Well then, pray to the Lord in heaven that this spell doesn’t run out before we get there.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a pretty kick-ass day, so I thought I'd share the kick-assness with you all. Here's Chapter 4 *do-do-do-do*! Once again, a golf clap for the lovely kimpernickle.
> 
> Today's tunes are brought to you by Jame N Commons ([Hold On](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr7fwpkTZpE)).


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“And it’s no, nay, ne-ver...[n]o, nay, ne-ver no more, will I play the wild rover, no ne-ver, no more.”_

BEATRICE

 

Gravity and fatigue forced Beatrice to her knees. With Clara on her back, she crawled up the knoll; damp earth and sharp grass pinched under her nails with each heave. Sweat dripped down her temples and rolled off her back. With a final grunt, she pulled her torso up and over the crest and collapsed. Her legs and arms trembled as her body blazed against the cool, wet ground. Dew touched her lips, and she ached for water.

A squat, stony building sat before them. Beatrice could make out some action from around its corner: the mob had all but dissipated. Why stay out in the frigid evening burning expensive oil and undirected rage, when the subject of their fury had been swallowed up by the woods, protected by a fear second only to death? In the mob’s stead, a smatter of men patrolled the road. She counted five. In their mouths, red-tipped cigarettes; in their weather-worn hands, blunt and at times sharp objects.

Clara rolled off Beatrice’s back and scuttled from under the cloak, materializing like a specter from a campfire story. With a stifled groan, Beatrice pushed herself up and shambled to the back of the building. She collapsed against it with a sigh and buried her face into her knees. The night’s encounter was etched into her mind’s eye, as if bored into wood; if she concentrated though, the sharp sting of the wind and the Beast’s voice could be ignored.

She smelled smoke, felt her shoulders warm and heard her cloak sizzle. Beatrice bounded to her feet, snatched the heavy wool thing off and threw it into the ground. A wave of pins pricked across her nerves as she materialized. She smothered it and hoped that the grey smoke pluming from it was faint enough to evade the eye of the townsfolk.

When it stopped smoking, Beatrice picked up the cloak to assess the damage and sank with dismay. Two frayed holes now replaced the embroidered design of invisibility threads. She swore. It could have been worse, but the cloak would be ostensibly useless until she could find material to patch it—and only the good Lord above knew when that would be. So she sat, leaned against the wall and indulged herself with the musings of a warm, enveloping bed.

Someone tapped her shoulders. Beatrice jumped and clutched her heart. It was Clara who stood beside her.

“What are you still doing here, kid?” she asked breathless. In the bright light of the moon, the dirt and sweat that lined Clara’s face was clear, but her eyes were finally dry and she had stopped shivering. At the child’s non-response, Beatrice sighed and waved her hand. “Look, Clara, you’re—”

Clara threw her arms around Beatrice, and the little girl rasped out a barely audible _thank you_. Beatrice flinched. She scrunched her face in the confused concentration of a pawn shop attendant examining the gold content of a foreign currency. Honestly, she could not recall the last time a person they had rescued expressed such gratitude. So rare such a gesture was that she could only return the embrace in stilted, awkward movements.

“Don’t worry about it,” Beatrice replied. “You’re safe now.” She pulled away from the child.

“What about you and that man back there?” Clara gestured to the forest.

Beatrice’s already dry mouth seemed to go drier. Her hands shook, but she crossed her arms to keep her uncertainty, her fear from Clara’s line of sight. “We’ll be fine,” she responded.

After a beat, and the child still hovering over her, she added, “Why are you still here, anyway? You don’t need help getting home or something, do you?” Clara shook her head. Her wispy, cloud-like hair trailed her movement. The girl then offered a small, tired smile, in an expression that reminded Beatrice of her younger siblings so much that she too smiled. Beatrice jerked her thumb towards the main road behind them. The little girl dashed down the alley.

Beatrice peeked around the corner. Clara trotted toward the road, but her gait slowed to a trepidatious creep as she crossed the road. She came to a stop outside Mr. Windsor’s Tavern and Inn. Her pale pink dress almost glowed in both the silver moonlight and the gold candlelight from the tavern’s windows.

The loitering men saw her. One of them, a salt-and-pepper haired man wielding a board, dropped his wares and his jaw. He tapped the smooth-faced man next to him and declared, “That’s her!” The younger one and he then fell into an argument over what, or perhaps who, they were seeing. Another man, brandishing a pistol on his hip and a floppy hat on his head, dashed away, but not before tripping on the edge of a barrel.

Clara took no heed to the commotion, however. She stood at the door and stared at it, as though waiting to drift through its walls like the specter she appeared to be. Beatrice would have questioned what was taking so long, but she knew that hesitation. She suspected that the young girl’s stomach clawed at her sides; that a heavy weight languished over her shoulders. This child had found herself in the Beast’s clutches for a reason. Guilt sourced her hesitation.

After a long stretch, the men had grown quiet but Clara remained as silent and as still as a statue. A breeze rippled through the town. Beatrice could hear her heart as well as she could feel it rapping against her bones.

A small voice cracked the silence as brilliant lightning cracks an ebony, midnight sky.

“Clara?” Martha’s voice broke. The little girl flinched. In slow, steady movements, she turned to face the speaker. Beatrice could hardly make out the woman from her vantage point, but she noticed that the once-dark windows, were beginning to bloom with light and chatter. People began trickling onto the street.

Clara’s face twisted up in tight distress. She gripped the fabric of her dress as if she could wring courage from its faded dye.

Martha entered Beatrice’s frame of view with even steps. Beatrice could make out the age and the worry in the fine lines of her face. She could make out the tiny twitches in her shoulder. She could hear the disbelief in the woman’s shaky breathing. Martha held that matching handkerchief in her left hand, as if it were a rope harboring her to reality. Martha dropped to her knees as she approached the girl. She held the child at arm’s length; her hands slid from Clara’s shoulders to her hands. She looked at her with a quizzical furrow in her brow, as if, after all of that had transpired, she could not believe her only daughter stood before her.

“I’m sorry, Mom! I’m sorry I ran off, I just—”

Martha pulled her daughter into what was most assuredly an unimaginably tight hug. Clara’s words dissolved into tears and the two of them sobbed together.

To be embraced by a mother like that, Beatrice thought, God, it must feel like embracing the sun. Martha choked on her tears and the moan she made sounded somewhere between elation and pain. It was enough to quiet the hall and garner the attention of the rest of the town.

“Is that Clara?”

“She’s back?”

“Where did she come from?”

“Do you think this is the work of the Lantern Bearer?”

“It couldn’t be.”

“Should we investigate the forest?”

“Only if you’re ready to become one of the Beast’s too.”

“My daughter is back from the dead,” Martha snapped. The murmur about the crowd hushed. She stood and her daughter retreated behind her skirts.

“But the Beast—” a faceless woman within the crowd started.

“Surely this is the work of the devil.”

“Satan walks among us tonight!”

A collective gasp ran through the crowd and murmurs erupted. Beatrice bit her bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. Her stomach twisted and turned. Running would catch someone’s attention. Even though the hill upon which the town stood was steep, it wasn’t so steep that it would block her from their view. But running was off the list of possibilities in any regard, as Beatrice simply did not have the energy to take off at a blinding sprint again. She would be caught and Wirt, still wounded in the forest, would die. She was forced to wait until one of the townsfolk found her.

“It is of no consequence!” Martha shouted. “My daughter’s return is a miracle from the Lord Jesus, Himself. Who are we to question His ways? To question His mercy?”

Silence as cold as the wind took ahold of the crowd. “Now look, I know that ya’ll are frightened and I am too. I truly and honestly am. There are forces at work in these wildernesses like nowhere else Before, but…perhaps that is why we are here. We have been brought to this place in order to pause and reflect on all that the Lord has blessed us with. And rest assured—this is a blessing. Look with your own eyes. Does this trembling child seem as though she’s been touched by an evil spirit?

“There is _love_ in her return. _Goodness_.” Martha gave her daughter’s shoulders a gentle shake for emphasis. “Friends, Instead of the things that feed the Enemy: fear, distrust, cynicism and hate, maybe what we need to do is come together in joyous, faithful celebration.”

Beatrice held her breath.

A cry cut through the heavy, fog-like silence. Townsfolk parted to let them through, but not in any useful manner for Beatrice to see who was now among them.

“Lord Almighty. Jesus Christ.” It was Lottie. Beatrice cursed under her breath. Lottie shook like a leaf holding desperately to its branch in a frosty winter wind. “Clara. You’re… _alive_.”

Shoes slapped against the muddied ground and then came an _oof_. A laugh rang through the women and their child and the crowd echoed their happiness. Beatrice imagined the three of them tangled up in the mud in a knot of love, affection and resonant thankfulness.

Mr. Windsor's baritone broke the joviality: “Martha, you're right. This evening has been touched by something good and right. It is a night for celebration. Everyone! Join me at the tavern! Drinks and food all around!”

For a breath, the crowd said nothing, but like a leaf floating into still water, ripples erupted among the town. With the promise of free beer and food and perhaps in conjunction with seeing something as pure as a daughter returned to her mother, they responded with whoops, hollers and cheers. They filed into tavern with song and praise in their voices. 

Beatrice rested against the cold stone building and exhaled long and slow. Every muscle in her body slowly unclenched. She almost cried.

A fiddle sounded and the impossibly loud chatter dipped to make room for the coming music. The player adjusted the tune of their instrument and when the notes fell to where they wanted, they struck up a quick number Beatrice did not know. Its liveliness urged her feet to tap out the rhythm. She tried to recall when to turn to her right or her left, when to clap, when to cross the divide, when to saunter down it with a partner in arm. She tried to remember how to dance.

After the rapturous applause such a piece required, the next song slowed the tempo and contemplative, wistful lyrics from the crowd accompanied it. Its familiarity sent ice through Beatrice’s veins. Her breath caught in her throat. When she snipped off her family’s wings with Adelaide’s scissors and they returned to their true, human form, Jonathon, her oldest and most musically inclined sibling, played this song on Grandda’s fiddle until the approaching sunrise turned the inky night sky blue as sapphires.

Beatrice cast her gaze up to a very similar wide open black sky and found her voice. “And it’s no, nay, ne-ver,” she sang. She tapped the ground four times with the claps from the tavern. “No, nay, ne-ver no more, will I play the wild rover, no ne-ver, no more.” She rested her cheek upon her knees. While her throat tightened and she shivered in the cold, Beatrice had no more tears to shed over the resounding fact that her own prodigal return would not be met with such gleeful pomp.

An incredibly long time ago, Nathaniel Dougherty opened their Bible to the family tree (a long, twisting thing that traversed back to Clonaslee), ripped his eldest daughter’s name from it and tossed it into the fire. Ada Dougherty held her daughter to keep her from stopping her father. “Turning us into birds was one thing—an accident of fate, an act of God,” her mother deplored into her ear, “but to willingly, of your own volition, walk with he who walks with the Beast? Unforgivable.” Jonathan, Liam, Jane, Margie, Oliver, Sean and Lucy sat on the stairs, caged by its balusters, watched expressionless and quiet. Her parents did not have to throw salt across the threshold, or make crosses of burning sage. The echo of the door slamming in Beatrice’s face was enough of a ward.

A branch snapped, jostling her. The sound was dangerously close. She had no shadows to hide in, as the moon was bright, despite its half-full status. All that was needed to spot her was a slight turn to the left. Beatrice cursed under her breath as she ducked further along the edge of the building.

She would fight if she had to. Her muscles might as well have atrophied, they were so tired, but her nails were kept long and her teeth could cleave more than rabbit’s meat. She held her breath, bracing herself for the worst. But it was Martha—bone-weary but blithe Martha— who appeared instead of death. Beatrice exhaled and gave thanks to whoever up there was in charge of these sort of things.

The crickets chirped, and the fiddle continued, and if Beatrice concentrated, the two dissonant sounds complimented each other. She watched the other woman cross her arms and lean against the edge of the building. She, too, looked upward into the vast expanse that hung over them.

“My daughter said you might be out here,” Martha said and after a beat added, “thank you.”

Beatrice finched. She glanced at Martha and then returned her focus to her rough, cracked, dirty hands. “It was nothing,” she muttered.

“Nothing?” The woman breathed. Beatrice looked over her shoulder—Martha faced her now, hands on her hips and a quizzical expression knitted into her brows and pressed lips. “You think...pulling my only child from the grips of Perdition itself was... _nothing_?”

Beatrice recoiled, confused by Martha’s confusion. “Oh, well, I suppose since everything turned out alright in the end, we can ignore the fact that _one_ , we told you we wanted to help and _two_ , you let a mob drive us out of town.”

Martha stiffened. “I know. And...I’m sorry,” she offered.

Her words ignited a fuse, which ended with a _bang_ as Beatrice exploded to her feet. “No—you don’t get an easy _sorry_.” She clenched her fist as if she were grasping the point itself and took a sharp step forward. “My husband is out there—” she gestured to the woods, “—hurt, wounded and barely _alive_ because of you.”

Martha took a step back. One hand over her heart, the other raised, she responded, “With the Lord as my witness, I am sorry.”

Beatrice laughed mirthlessly. “Go to hell.”

“Let me help you now as repayment.” Martha approached her, reaching out to her as though she were going to embrace, or even just touch her. Beatrice snatched her arm back. “What do you need?”

Beatrice pinched her lips and crossed her arms. “A horse and carriage,” she spat. She looked down, and quieter she added, “Some water.”

“All things but the carriage I can get to you. Come with me to my home.”

“Wait, what?”

“If we make haste, they won’t notice my absence,” Martha chidded. She grasped Beatrice’s wrist, and Beatrice pushed her hand off. Martha sighed. “I know that you do not trust me, and you have every right not to, but please.”

Beatrice took another step back. “Tell them,” she said. “Tell them that we’re not lying. That we travel the Unknown looking for the Beast’s victims to save them.” She thought for a moment, then added, “And my name is Beatrice. My husband’s is Wirt. Not ‘the Lantern Bearer and his woman.”

Martha nodded. “I’ll tell them.” Once more, she motioned for Beatrice to follow. Beatrice huffed and heeded.

They walked from the tavern towards the town’s opening. They kept to the alleys and the backs of buildings. Their diving and dodging led them to a short, rectangular home, which bore a stark resemblance to the bricks which made up its walls. A stable large enough for the single steed resting in the far corner stood beside it. The beast was far more handsome than the old, brown Dougherty Shire horse with its deep copper hide, socks of black, white hooves and thick, luxurious black mane. He was either a Dutch Warmblood or a mix with Warmblood dominance.

“Your horse,” Martha gestured to him. “His name is Nantucket. Clara calls him Tucket for short, but he’ll respond to either. I’ll be back with some water.”

Beatrice leaned against the door to the stable while Martha disappeared into her home. She twisted her ring and every so often glanced over her shoulder to take notice of sleeping Tucket. Honestly, she would rather not be in this situation, reliant on someone else’s livelihood, but Beatrice resolved herself to returning the horse when she could.

Martha returned with a pewter pitcher and the handle of a gourd sticking from it in one hand. In the other, a canteen with a long leather strap. Both seemed to have incantations of some sort etched into them. Beatrice had to admit that one, on a very short list, of the splendid things about the Unknown was the simple fact that she could drink water without taking the time to boil it first.

Martha placed the pitcher on the barrister and offered Beatrice the brim-filled gourd. She didn’t need to be prodded further. Greedily, she snatched it and drank. Some spilled down her front, but she gave it no bother. She drank until the pitcher was empty and her stomach full.

Martha returned the gourd to the pitcher with a plop, as though there were still water in it. Beatrice surmised it to be the spell, but still found her eyebrow raising in disbelief. Martha opened the stable and stepped in to wake the horse. The great beast rose and stood a full foot and a half taller than her.

“You said your husband is still in the woods?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Beatrice responded. “The Beast usually leaves us alone once it loses a soul, but the sooner I can get back to him, the better.”

Martha extended the reigns to her. Upon closer inspection, Beatrice could see that Tucket was quite old, but still, his legs were still faster and stronger than a human’s. “You need to go to Lanercost.”

“The shipping town?” Beatrice asked, receiving the reigns.

“There is more than just docks there,” Martha said. “It’s a metropolis, with witches and enchantments and all things magic at your beck and call. If there is anyone who can heal and save your husband, you’ll find them there. It’s fifty miles due east. The road will take you there.”

Beatrice pulled herself into the saddle. Using the moon, she found east. If she only had to worry about bringing herself into the city, she would need chocolate bark, coffee beans and maybe a full day’s of riding. But as the situation stood, this would be a day and a half’s journey at best, and things weren’t certainly at their best.

Martha disappeared into the house again and returned with a cloth bag and a lantern of her own. She tied the bag around the saddle horn and mentioned that its contents were bread and jerky. She gave her the canteen and the lantern. Beatrice draped the canteen over her shoulders, and held the lantern.

Tucket trotted around in a circle, trying to wake up. Beatrice could hardly blame the poor thing for being stirred from deep slumber. She guided it back towards the lady of the house.

Martha grasped Beatrice’s forearm. “You do the Lord’s work. May He keep you safe.”

She thanked Martha once again, dug her heels into the horse’s side, and galloped into the night and into the forest, unsure of what she would find once she reached Wirt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhhhh...hi guys! How's it going? You all doing well? Want some cookies? Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays?
> 
> Goooood, I can't apologize enough for the time it's taken to get this chapter uploaded. If you've been following me on [the tumbls](http://america-oreosandkitkats.tumblr.com/), you know that during the last half of the semester was just slammed with projects and I took on a ton of hours at my pt job in preparation for traveling this month for Christmas. I just didn't have the time to work on this like I thought I was going to. But now that I'm on break, I'm hoping that I'll finally have some quality time with G-Docs to whip out the rest of this story. I'm hoping to get at least chapter 6 up before I leave the West Coast.
> 
> For those of you who have stuck around, I am forever in your debt. Thank you, thank you so much for your reads, kudos and comments. I can't get this done without your support!
> 
> And without further ado, here's this weeks addition to the unintentional jukebox musical soundtrack. The Wild Rover is a traditional Irish tune. The version I know and was inspired by is a slightly more polished and pop-sounding one by [The High Kings](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA2tvgXcqGA), but if you want a more traditional sounding version, [The Dubliners](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_4KboYi40I) have a great one. The Dubliners version doesn't have a fiddle though; just a banjo, guitar (?) and penny whistle.


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